


swords & shields

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Violence, Humor, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-10-22 07:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: They're on a very important quest to save the kingdom. Nyx has no time to be falling for the hot stranger in the local tavern.





	1. setting out, setting off

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159809436017/i-feel-like-fight-me-you-attractive-stranger) for various requests from [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159638211212/five-word-prompts)

“Fight me, you attractive stranger.”

Nyx was pretty sure that Crowe made that particular line up. He wished that he could be so sure she’d made the rest of it up, as well. But his memory was slowly betraying him with the truth. That he’d made a complete and utter asshole of himself in front of who he now knew to be the next King of Lucis.

He remembered the brat introducing himself as he loomed over Nyx’s prone body in the back of the tavern. His lips curled into a smirk, eyes hooded in satisfaction, and he let each syllable of his name drop onto Nyx like bags of sand: “Noctis Lucis Caelum.”

Nyx didn’t know what had come over him last night… Which was, technically, half-true. He didn’t remember what had possessed him to drink so much. Contrary to what Crowe suggested it was _not_ because he was stifling any “sexual frustrations” about the attractive blue-eyed devil that befell Nyx’s liege-lady.

Luna was a revered knight that Nyx had been tasked to accompany on a holy quest across Eos. A threat to their kingdom in the form of a dark magician demanded to be hunt down. Honor-bound to House Caelum, Luna had volunteered to take up the bounty for the sorcerer. She had intended to make the journey herself, but her lord stipulated that if she was to take up the task, she should not take it alone. Nyx was recommended to accompany her, and Luna had happily accepted his aid.

They had set out immediately, and the tavern at the edge of Lucis territory was their first stop as night fell. Crowe being there had been purely by coincidence – or so she said. Nyx had learned a long time ago not to take too much of her “coincidences” at face-value. Nevertheless, she was a welcome face in the smoky tavern, barking at them from her seat and offering to buy them both a drink.

No matter _what_ she said, Nyx did not order himself a second pint _just_ because he caught the icy-blue glint of those eyes across the room. It was _not_ to keep himself from staring for an incomprehensible amount of time at the tantalizing midnight caress of his hair. And it was _especially_ not because his heartbeat elevated when he saw the man treat Luna to a drink.

It wasn’t to numb any feeling of envy for watching that demure smile lilt towards Luna. It wasn’t to cool any strange, boiling hot sensation in his stomach as he caught the raspy, musical note of his laugh from his hunched seat at the opposite end of the bar. Nyx glared over what the amount of empty tankards indicated to be his fourth drink. He barely even heard Crowe next to him, playing with little bolts of electricity that she conjured between her fingers.

“I can’t tell if you want to punch that guy or buy a room and take him in it.”

“The hell is he cozying up to her for?” Nyx grumbled without responding. “Is he trying to pick-pocket her? He’s not flirting, I _know_ flirting, and that’s not flirting… The hell does he want?”

“How ‘bout you go over and ask?”

The chair growled out from beneath Nyx. He pressed his palms to the table for a moment, not understanding why it looked like it was on an angle. But! He didn’t let himself dwell on it for too long because he had questions damnit! Crowe said he had questions. He wobbled halfway across the tavern before he forgot what those questions were.

All he remembered was that he didn’t like those shy eyes blinking so innocently at Luna. He didn’t like that soft grin, that wild mess of hair that Nyx hated even more that his own hands weren’t tangled up in… to smash his face into the bar, obviously!

He wasn’t sure what he _meant_ to say when he finally arrived at the little nook this annoyingly handsome stranger was occupying with Luna. But whatever it was, it came out as “duel.” Nyx vaguely remembered confused rebuttals from Luna – “Nyx, _no_ ” – some distant hollering at his back that must have been Crowe, and the confounded, _cute_ (fuck!) crease of the pretty-eyed boy’s forehead.

Then, it was transit outside of the tavern that Nyx remembered like water in his ears. Some very distinct flashes of the man across from him, wielding a sword that Nyx thought he remembered looked invisible before his soberness reminded him that it was just black, and blended with the rest of the stranger’s attire. He remembered somehow not cutting off his own fingers when he spun his kukris over his knuckles to meet him in challenge.

A few loud shouts of slurred shit-talk and very clear eye-rolls from those dumb, sharp, _blue,_ so fucking _blue_ eyes. He saw the man in a series of portraits. Standing at attention, a crisp, solid stance. Then, the black blade lashing out in an arc like a crescent moon. Then Nyx remembered the sky. Then he remembered that face appearing in the sky.

The man stooped over him, dark hair wreathing his face in shadow, but Nyx could still see how bright his gaze was as he smiled.

“Don’t worry, I won’t have you tried for treason,” he chuckled.

And that’s when Nyx was told he’d just challenged the Prince of Lucis to a duel for not giving Nyx as much attention as anyone else in the room.

“Crowe,” he said against the table he smashed his face into to hide from the world. “Never let me drink again.”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

He knew she didn’t mean a word of it.


	2. stay away from the sword summoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> high ho, high ho, off to violently falling in love we go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on tumblr for [aithilin.](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/)

Nyx contemplated non-existence.

He seriously considered spiriting off under the cover of night and finding a wizard – that was _not_ Crowe, no matter how low of a fee she offered – to eradicate his existence off the face of Eos. That would be such a sweeter mercy than having to wake up to this hangover, with these people, and getting up on that chocobo to go gallivanting across Duscae to do their thing.

Especially with Noctis electing to now ride with them.

Making a behemoth’s puckered asshole of himself in front of a stranger in a tavern was one thing. Even making himself said asshole in front of Lucian nobility that was close acquaintances with his Lady was one thing that he could _maybe_ bounce back from with enough faulty retelling of the tale and acres upon acres of Lucian countryside between him and the tavern.

Making himself said asshole in front of a man that he was now going to be spending the duration of his quest with in close proximity was an astronomically, out of reach, _other_ thing.

It was hard to argue against the new addition to the team with a rucksack bag of frozen potatoes pressed to his head. Not that being _not_ hung-over would have had any bearing on Luna’s decision to bring her friend along.

Luna and Noctis were two of a kind, Nyx was quickly realizing. Dignified trouble-makers, the both of them. They were master fabricators of the softest, sweetest court smiles that comforted right before they broke into cackles over the orchestrated social misfortune of their enemies. Nyx _wished_ that he could blame either one of them for his own civil disrepute. The half-drunk part of him still maintained that it was, in fact, Noctis’s fault for being so… _stupidly handsome_.

With a back bruised from the tavern yard and a slowly sobering ego, mortally wounded by his defeat to the pretty prince, Nyx batted off the worst remains of his hang-over and they set out.

“Your head alright? Luna assures me you have a hard one, but so was the ground.”

Nyx slanted a sunken-eyed glare at Noctis as he reined his chocobo’s stride to align with Nyx’s own. The ale hadn’t warped Nyx’s perception of the man. He was as frustratingly beautiful in the open day as he was in the closed tavern. Light, sun-kissed skin framed by feathers of ebony hair that secreted away eyes like blue fireflies, winking in the evening grass. A shadow of black leather armor amid the glimmering white feathers of his steed.

Almost Sober Nyx thought the same thing Drunk Nyx had: how _dare_ he be so damn attractive?

“My head’s not the thing I’m worried about, Your Highness,” Nyx replied, forcing on a smile. “My pride is far more delicate than my bones.”

Noctis smiled – gods damn him, that’s how Nyx got into trouble in the first place. He was suddenly struck with gratitude that the prince didn’t frequent the Citadel where Nyx stood in service to his father. Because if his immediate reaction to that smile was to reach for a drink, Noctis would have made a town drunk out of him years ago.

“Well, I won’t hold last night’s challenge against you if you won’t hold the defeat against me,” Noctis promised, a small, wicked lilt turning the corners of his smile.

Nyx wrestled with the hot, bouncy feeling in his stomach which that smirk elicited, instead conjuring up a defiant grin of his own to match it.

“That was the exception to the rule, Your Highness. If you want to test your steel in a _fair_ fight, I’ll prove it to you when we next make camp.”

Noctis snorted, eyes rolling in exasperation, but his grin stayed shrewd and those firefly eyes flashed in challenge.

“Alright, Sir Ulric. You’re on.”

As they sealed the deal, Luna reined to a halt ahead of them. They drew up on either side of her, eyes forward on the blockade of mounts and men in the middle of the road. Strangers in worn leathers, splintered shields, and mismatched weaponry of all sorts, some astride mangy steeds and some afoot with notched bows aimed at the travelers.

“Bandits, _really_?” Nyx muttered under his breath.

“Further passage demands a toll,” the head of the group shouted over to them. “Steeds, steel, and silver, you know the drill. Come on, to the ground with ye.”

Nyx deferred to Luna’s command, glancing over at the knight and waiting, expectantly, for her to give the order to just charge these vagabonds and be on their way. They were hardly a threat, not with the King’s magic ready to wield in his servants’ defense. And not with the skill they had cultivated over years of disciplined practice. Any one of the three of them could rake through the group like a pile of dead leaves should Luna give the order to.

She was thinking the same, Nyx realized. But that _smile_ – the sinisterly soft smirk of the debutante knight – warned him of her mischievous intentions before she began to play them.

“Clever sirs,” she began. “Our steeds are over-worked, our steel dulled, and our coffers barren of silver. I’m afraid that you’ll find very little use or value out of anything we may possess.”

“You think so, _milady_?” the head bandit sneered. “Don’t be so sure. Armor’s good, but what’s underneath could fetch just as nice a price.”

The group snickered and Nyx’s grip tightened on the hilt of a dagger hidden beneath his cloak. His anticipation fed into his chocobo, the creature shifting and clucking quietly beneath him. By contrast, Luna and her mount were still as gilded stone. The knight’s smile remained impenetrably calm, turning the slightest shade of _delighted_ when the bandit nodded towards their newest travelling companion.

“Take your pretty boy there,” he said, grinning at Noctis. “He can pay your toll. And keep paying.”

The group laughed and Nyx nearly dug his heels into his steed to spur her forward and slice his way through them all. His heart raced and he crouched forward, preparing for a fight as Luna’s mouth opened in the corner of his eye.

“We don’t trade in flesh…”

“My lady,” Noctis spoke then from her other side. “It’s alright. There’s no other way out of it. I offer myself up willingly.”

The prince dismounted and Nyx’s heartbeat stilled. He glanced between the two of them, confounded by the strangely serene looks on their faces. Were they still toying with the bandits? Was this still a part of the game Nyx thought they were playing on them?

Noctis turned to Luna, eyes wide and watery, as if he were fighting back tears as he started towards the perverted traders. And Luna’s face suddenly turned distraught to match his departure.

“Noctis, _no_!” she cried.

“Tell my father to remember me as I was.”

Luna brought a hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking as if wracked by sobs. Nyx froze when she suddenly turned her hand to reveal a smirk and a chuckle for him.

“100 gil says he only needs one sword for this.”

Nyx watched Noctis approach the group, shoulders hunched fearfully beneath his ears and steps growing more unsteady as he drew nearer. A fat, pink tongue wet the lips of the head bandit, and he jerked his chin for some of the others to seize the prince. Noctis made a pained noise, like a frightened animal, as they approached. He flinched back as one reached for him and Nyx nearly gave the game up, drawing his dagger to dive in and save him.

But the flinching motion Noctis had made was a trick into a lightning-quick draw of his sword and simultaneous split of bandit flesh as it swiped through them. The pitiful, whimpering noises he made dropped into a lethal scowl, and the prince was off.

Crystal Caelum magic hissed in violet-blue lines between each bandit, drawing a matching blue phantom at the end of each point and a spray of blood to go with it. The bandits fell as if they were a single entity, so quick was the prince’s warping steps and swift sword-thrusts. A deadly zig-zag trailing between a dozen men, ending at the disgusting man in the middle where Noctis punctuated the group’s death sentence with his midnight sword piercing his back and through his chest. There was a soft gurgle, then a deep crunch as Noctis jerked the sword free, and the bandit leader collapsed into the dust.

The dark prince surveyed the remains, blood dripping as black as his hair from his blade. He gave a disinterested huff, and blew his bangs from his eyes before barking over to Luna.

“I do mean telling my father that though,” he chuckled. “He won’t want to hear that I ruined his favorite cloak with blood.”

Luna laughed, wind-chime soft across the carnage. She elbowed Nyx in the side, said, “100 gil when you’re able,” and nudged her chocobo forward.

Nyx and his steed stayed stunned to the spot, staring at Noctis. Blood speckled his faultless skin, and his eyes glowed red-violet with the fading magic. He laughed at something Luna was saying, taking the reins of his pristine white chocobo. Then, he turned to Nyx, smiling that soft, quiet smile that drove him mad at the tavern. With blood on his cheeks and death in his eyes.

And Nyx was in love.


	3. stick it with the pointy end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Cause nothing helps along a crush quite like being crushed into the dirt.

Noctis was staring at him.

Noctis was staring at him _a lot._

Whether he was aware that he was doing it or not, Nyx was certain that this was his penance for acting like an ass the first night they’d met. There was no question in his mind that this was payback, that this was Noctis’ or the gods’ or some other unseen force of malcontent’s ironic breed of punishment for his drunken arrogance at the edge of Lucis.

Was this how awkward his staring had made Noctis feel in the tavern that night? Had the Prince actually _noticed_ the provoking slump of a stare well before Nyx had confronted him with it? As if his slurred state of sloshed stupidity hadn’t been mortifying enough.

The rational part of his brain – the one that he was starting to forget he even had – reminded him that the whole, dumbass point of his antics that night had been because Drunk Nyx thought the pretty-eyed thing by the bar was paying him an abhorrent _lack_ of attention. He couldn’t have noticed him. Otherwise, that doe-eyed look of surprise on his fine features was an excellent act.

But the altercation with the bandits was making Nyx doubt what he thought he knew about Noctis. Which was fairly little to begin with. He had his inebriated perceptions of him and Luna’s scant stories about him. He had a vague recollection of a prince’s reputation across the years, but he wasn’t even sure that it was Noct’s. (Luna called him Noct. It was getting stuck in Nyx’s head. Nyx hated it. It was far too sweet sounding for the little demon, but damn him if he didn’t want to say it. Over and over again. Right in Noct’s ear, rushing it through Noct’s soft hair, calling it against Noct’s smooth skin, speckled in the blood of Noct’s enemies…)

“Nyx.”

Luna’s voice startled him from his fogging thoughts. Startled him so badly that he nearly grabbed his daggers to defend them from the harrowing threat of burning campfire food. Nyx swore louder than was probably appropriate in front of Lucian nobility. It made Noctis smile out of the corner of his eye. And made Nyx’s teeth tingle with how hard he bit down on a scream.

Nyx pulled the boiling pot off the heat, letting the molten bubbles of briny broth settle before undertaking the task of tasting whether or not it had retained any edibility in the wake of his wayward attention. Hardly a dish fit for the King’s dinner table, but it would keep them fed while they were between towns. And not turn up in a less savory condition later in the night.

“Fish food for my esteemed Highnesses,” he announced, ladling the stew between three clay bowls. (“Always come over-prepared,” Luna had said when he was curious to find more than two bowls in their inventory, half suspecting she’d been expecting Noctis to join up with them all along.)

“Great! I love fish.”

Noctis accepted his portion with all the eager reverence of a kitten at mealtime, eyes big and bright and smiling as much as his lips were. Nyx had almost hoped that Noctis would beat the bowl from his hands, spill it down the front of his breeches, and throw a royal tantrum for being served like a commoner, just to give his chest a reason to _stop doing that._ That twisting, noisy knot of whatever the hell _that_ was.

He retreated to his makeshift cot, putting the fire between him and Noct… _Noctis_. _Prince_ Noctis, he reminded himself, as if the social divide could convince him to stop imagining what he looked like under that leather jerkin. Nyx sat down a little too hard beside his chocobo, earning an indignant quark for disturbing her from her rest. He appeased the beast with a controlled caress along her neck, relearning how to breathe right from the animal’s steady heartbeat.

“I’ve been told that you’re an excellent cook, Sir Ulric,” Luna said from her strategic position between both men. “You owned a tavern before you were knighted?”

He had to laugh at that, grateful for the distraction. “Not owned, much as I was hoping to one day. And I wouldn’t call what I did there ‘cooking’ so much as dumping things in a pot and hoping for the best.”

“It is,” Noctis said. “The best.”

He slurped at his soup, as undignified as any street hawker in the slums of Galahd. Nyx thought that the little rational nugget of his brain that he was afraid he’d never get back would have been repulsed by that. But, no, here was the rest of him, being hopelessly endeared by the sight of the prince thoroughly enjoying his meal. A meal that _Nyx_ had made for him.

“You can thank my old partner for that,” he said, for the sake of out-talking his tumbling thoughts. “Libs was the real cook. Anything I know how to do with a pot, I learned from watching him. Drinks were more my thing.”

Noctis glanced up from his stew, a wicked slant to his smile that was doing absolutely nothing to help Nyx catch his ailing breath. “Is that right?”

Nyx swirled the stew around his bowl, waiting for the flaky white fish to spell out a more sympathetic excuse for the incident being implied. Luna was of no help, hiding a traitorous smirk behind the edge of her bowl when he cast a silent plead for aid her way.

“Everyone has their weakness,” he grumbled, trying to reinforce a very poor defense. “Guess mine’s Weskham Whiskey.”

“Mmhm, that’s it.”

He shot a glare towards his liege-lady. If he were a wizard, he would have put so much force behind it that her stew snapped up into her face. As if anything so petty could perturb the pristine power of the holy knight. Noctis chuckled, smooth and deep and amiable as ever. He knocked back the remains of his stew like a tankard of the ale that had condemned Nyx to eternal humiliation.

“Well, since there will be no crossing paths with your nemesis again for miles, how about that rematch you promised me?”

Nyx watched him rise to his feet, turning his spoon through his half eaten stew in suspicious contemplation. He did promise that – a much saner version of himself that peeked out from behind his aching hangover. That same iteration returned in a frantic burst of _that is a bad idea, don’t do that, I don’t why, I don’t know how, but it’s not a good idea, at all, rescind invitation, deny request, abort, abort!_

“Sure! I think my pride’s gone unavenged for a little too long.”

“You might find it stays that way.”

The little devil _winked_ at him, Astrals be _damned_. Nyx stood up a little too quickly, a little too reminiscent of his first time challenging the man to a duel. But his feet stayed steady underneath him this time, the level of the ground stayed straight, and he only saw one vision of ebon-haired elegance in front of him instead of the five that old Weskham Whiskey had introduced him to.

Noctis called a sword from his Armiger, different from the black blade that had swept Nyx off his feet and cleaved through the bandits that accosted them on the road. This one was plainer steel, just as finely forged as the other, but with a blunted edge for the express purpose of safe practice. Nyx called his kukris from the King’s reserve.

“These are all I have,” he warned him, the mismatched steel glinting crookedly in the firelight. “But I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“Your steel might be sharper than mine, but I wouldn’t count on it giving you an edge.”

“Oh, I’m not.” The careful whirl of the knives over his knuckles was just for show. Just to prove that, yes, he did in fact know how to use them when he wasn’t making drunken proclamations of his superiority with a blade. “I count on my roguish good looks for that.”

Noctis laughed, the most dangerous weapon in his arsenal. He cut a glance towards Luna. “Want to take on the winner?”

Her eyes glinted as sharply as any blade, sizing each of them up with the soft surety of a snowfall in winter. “Alright then. Do try not to maim each other too terribly though. I like an attractive retinue at my service.”

That made Nyx laugh as well, the clot of infatuated nervousness in his guts starting to unravel. Luna had a power about her that set people at ease. She always knew what to say to diffuse any situation. He’d had the honor of being on duty in the throne room for one of her visits to the Citadel, where she addressed a group of crotchety skeptics as to the legitimacy of her claiming to have tamed the power of Altissia’s tempestuous sea goddess for herself. A room never calmed so quickly at the sound of a voice, not even for King Regis himself.

Their camp quieted after that, focused for the sparring at hand. This was better already, Nyx thought, exhaling the remaining phantoms of his doubt. His sobriety didn’t make Noctis any less beautiful, didn’t prove that Drunk Nyx just liked to pretend that the whole world and everything in it was a beautiful rainbow of peace and love and the pursuit of pretty things. But it did make him remember that he had an honor to restore. That the daggers beneath his palms weren’t merely prizes to show off and impress potential bedmates with.

Drunk Nyx had nothing to prove. Sober Nyx had a hell of a lot to.

Noctis struck first, quick even without his power to propel him forward. His cloak was still drying from a rigorous scrubbing in the river down the hill, the browning stains of blood in the dark fabric reminding Nyx just what the prince was capable of. Not that he was ever likely to forget. The image of Noctis, smiling and sweet, with bright red flecks brushed across his cheeks and a bloodglow in his eyes, was forever stamped onto the back of his brain.

_Try not to end up as the next splatter pattern on that face._ He parried Noct’s sword with a steady scrape of steel, trying very hard not to admire the way it reflected in his eyes. He returned the blow with a downward swipe, catching the edge of the sword underneath the curve of his kukris. He pushed down, trying to pin the blade to the dirt, but Noctis was stronger than he looked, fighting him for every inch and driving upwards until he gained enough space to swipe his sword out from under the steel trap the daggers clutched it in.

They traded strikes like that for a good long while, chasing the heady pulse of combat, beating along to each clash of steel. The longer they fought, the more Nyx smiled. He hadn’t had a formidable partner to practice with for a long time. His friends were powerful fighters in their own right, always challenging him in the yard to find his limitations and overcome them. But he hadn’t had someone _new_ like this in too long. Hadn’t had anyone he couldn’t predict after years upon years of learning the intricacies of each step against him.

Noctis moved like liquid night, the gray gilt of his sword as quick as a falling star. His eyes flashed with every spark of the sliding blades, a quick bolt of blue light in the dark. He scowled in concentration as the fight drew on, hair wild with every movement and skin flushed against the hard pace. Nyx could feel the heat of Noct’s blood racing with the adrenaline between them both, felt his own skin shiver every time his boot brushed the toe of Noct’s when he dove in close, or his arm bumped into his when their blades collided too close.

Noctis glared at him over the shining metal in fiendish delight. A lull of confidence had lured Nyx into the lock of steel, a lethal spell that could overcome even the greatest of warriors. The rhythm of battle became hypnotic, tricked him into following a particular pattern. It happened in long fights, fights that he was trained to end long before they could stretch on to any such length. He got too content in the safety of their little campsite. In the distraction of Noct’s bluefire eyes.

Noctis changed the tune of the fight. The melody slowed, deliberate and abrupt, too fast for Nyx to rein himself in to fall into step alongside it. Noctis took advantage of his runaway haste, ducking out from under a succession of strikes and tripping Nyx onto his face before he could rebalance himself to dodge.

He got a mouthful of grass and a hot bundle of weight on his back, pressing singed steel to the heated flesh at the base of his neck. Which only made Nyx’s bounding heart run faster, pumping so hard that he felt it in his whole skull. He could barely even hear Noctis’ victorious demand for him to yield, his pulse drummed so loudly in his ears.

It ceased completely for a moment. Nyx feared that Noctis had driven him so mad that his heart had exploded. That he was dead and hearing the song of the messengers to ferry souls to the heavens, crooned into his ear.

The incorporeal acolytes of the Astrals were not nearly so merciful though. Noct’s voice was heavy and hot, and Nyx could feel his whole body heaving against his back, could feel his thighs trembling, clutched where they were against his sides to hold him down. Nyx bit down on a blade of grass to contain the obscene noise that threatened to expose him when Noctis rasped along the shell of his ear.

“Was it worth it?” he asked. “This pride you care about so much?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Your Highness,” Nyx barely managed to say, wheezing past the churning desire infecting his stomach. “You were never worth it.”

He turned his head just enough to catch the edge of Noct’s grin, wet with sweat and pink with his pounding pulse. And it was so close to him, too. Just close enough that if Nyx twisted his neck, he’d probably break it under the weight of Noct’s sword, but it would be worth it to taste the salt of those soft lips before he died.

Before he could do anything so foolish and die as much of a disgrace as his previous drunkenness already made him, Luna’s voice chimed across the campfire. “I believe that’s match.”

“And I believe you owe me a dance, milady.”

Noctis climbed off of Nyx and it was all he could do not to jump up and drag him back down on him. Not to roll him into the dirt, tangle his lush hair with moon-kissed grass, and wrestle out more of those deep, hot grunts without the steelsong to smother them.

Nyx rolled onto his back and gulped in the cool night air to cleanse his raging thoughts. It soothed his ragged pulse, eased the heat from his skin, but unlike the cold clarity of a bucket of water dumped over his head, it could not clear away just how intoxicated he was with the Prince of Lucis.


End file.
